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Today was a crazy day with several moving pieces in the election security world, so if you missed anything, scroll through this thread: 1/
Embattled US Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testified before the Senate Homeland Security Committee today. I was tweeting as it went, and then wrote it up. See the thread: https://twitter.com/AJVicens/status/1296800128330797056?s=20 2/
And then the story write-up here: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/08/senate-republicans-stand-with-the-postmaster-general-even-as-he-admits-mail-delays/ 3/
The key takeaway was that DeJoy says everything is being blown out of proportion, and to not believe the postal workers and others sounding the alarm about operational changes that are slowing mail—including medicines and paychecks—and could really screw with the election. 4/
Republicans acknowledged some mail delays and voiced some muted concerns, but mostly viewed it as an attack on Trump and Democratic games. Democrats were pointing to postal workers' claims and DeJoy's lack of transparency about what he's doing. 5/
The hearing came a day after a former high-level postal service official testified described what he says is Treasury Sec. Steve Mnuchin and the White House extorting the USPS for dicey operational concessions in return for necessary funding. See here: https://cpc-grijalva.house.gov/uploads/WitnessTestimony_CPC%20Hearing%20USPS%20.pdf 6/
So all of that is going on, but there's a development out of Pennsylvania you may have missed. The Trump campaign is suing state and local officials there, claiming that ballot drop boxes may lead to voter fraud. A Trump-appointed judge in the case ... 7/
... told the campaign to provide proof of their claims or to admit they don't have any. The filing deadline was a week ago today and they turned over a big pile of not much at all (as first reported by @theintercept and @rjsalame). Here's my version: https://www.motherjones.com/2020-elections/2020/08/trump-pennsylvania-voter-fraud/ 8/
There were other developments this week. On Tuesday the Senate Intel Committee released a ~1k page report on Russian interference in the '16 election. My colleagues @DavidCornDC and @dfriedman33 have excellent insight here: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/08/new-senate-report-manafort-linked-to-russian-intel-and-trump-campaign-helped-putins-2016-attack/ 9/
One thing that stuck out to me was that @RonWyden, known for flagging important yet hidden stuff, said that evidence of ongoing Russian interference in the 2020 elections is needlessly redacted. See here: https://www.motherjones.com/2020-elections/2020/08/senate-report-ron-wyden/ 10/
This is election news that has very little to do with horse race politics is evolving at a rapid clip. Thanks for reading and PLEASE get in touch to tell me what I'm missing. My secure contact number in Twitter bio and other methods here: https://github.com/AJVicens/contact_me/blob/master/contact_me.md 11/
Have a great weekend! See you all next week! 12/12
